Two Ugly Boxes
by consultingat221b
Summary: Sherlock is lonely now that John is living life with Mary outside of 221B. He heads towards a relapse in substance abuse and self harm. Will anyone be able to rescue him and help him climb out of his downward spiral? SHERLOLLY fic! TRIGGER WARNING: Self harm and drugs. Fluffy with comfort and neverending angst. Possible OOC moments to make your feels explode. Rated T for drug use.
1. Chapter 1

_This is my first fanfiction, and I have loved OOC Sherlock and angst and there were loads of stories about Sherlock relapsing and John comforting him, but I want to try some Sherlolly angst._

_Let's begin  
_

Chapter One

When a sociopath discovers they have feelings they do not wish to speak about it. It is common for them to hide their state of mind and not elaborate on the storm that results on their mind becoming a catastrophe, they are a sociopath. Their emotions are supposed to be non-existent and they should be antisocial. They used to be a sociopath. This person might feel hatred and love; they might have enemies and friends, maybe more than one. However, it can be a difficult matter to except. Emotions, the instinctive state of mind that feels horror, pain, fear, anguish, annoyance, hatred, and in the end happiness, or at least that is what everyone said.

Sherlock Holmes is a sociopath.

Or at least he was a sociopath. Once a cruel man named James Moriarty told him that his lies weren't true. He said they both knew it was not true that he didn't have a heart. Unknown to those closest to Sherlock, this was true, his enemy knew him better than the man he took no pleasure in admitting he had become. Sherlock Holmes refused to admit he had a heart. A brain without a heart was a telescope with a vast lens; it could see things that other brains couldn't. To admit ones feelings is weak. Sentiment was not a part of his vocabulary because if he cared he couldn't succeed in his rapid deductions and solving mind boggling crimes. A brain with a heart was useless to the man who waked the streets of London noticing every speckle of dust and connecting it to the age of the person who had entered the shop ten minutes ago. He did not have a heart. He didn't. He had a heart to beat and sustain his breath and help him function and supply blood for his fast paced brain. But, he didn't have a heart to feel. He didn't have a heart. He didn't. He didn't. He didn't.

"I don't have a heart," murmured Sherlock into his microscope as he analysed the shape of the cells in the sandy colour concrete discovered by Scotland Yard police in Kensington where there was a burglary and a man seemed to have disappeared without a trace from a 6th floor office with all the doors locked with incredibly stable security.

"What was that, Sherlock?" Molly uttered shyly, as Sherlock had not seen her enter his favourite lab at Bart's, "You okay?"

Sherlock sighed dryly, "Surely, Molly, you are aware of my use of mental notes, therefore I see no reason for you to be questioning me on something I simply mutter under my breath."

Molly stared at him _nothing_ had changed. For a while she believed the Sherlock trusted her that she would help him and he might confide in her. She smirked slightly at the idea it was preposterous, this man used her, He always did and always would. She didn't mind all that much. In fact the mortician acted ignorant to his insults because she quite enjoyed it. Each mindless comment Sherlock mad was a comment, wasn't it?

She pause temporarily, her thoughts were wild but after what happened two years ago she couldn't trust him with his mental notes. "It's just, last time -" she took a breath. Molly Hooper enjoyed sounding slightly complacent in her attempts at a deduction – despite these attempts really being foolish assumptions, "Yes, last time I heard you make a mental not it was two years ago and it was, um, before the incident when you, erm, you know…"

"Fell."

"Yes, I just don't want that to happen again. Please, never again. It broke John." John had become a perfect excuse. He cared; Molly would use his admiration for Sherlock and his devastating mourning for his death as a disguise for her thoughts to Sherlock and his disappearance. Molly, or course, knew that Sherlock was fine, but he felt dead. He was gone and no one cared. Well, a few good-hearted people, Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, John… most others thought he had faked his career. The titles 'Suicide of Fake Genius,' had later transformed to 'Fake Suicide of Genius,' rightfully so. "What was it you said?"

"Mental note," Sherlock protested. He grabbed his coat and without hesitation pulled his collar up and swiftly walked towards the ice white door of the lab where Molly sat in loneliness for the remaining half hour of her shift that always ended up finishing later than she would have hoped.

Sherlock had left his equipment on the lab bench, chemicals were lying on the shelves without lids, and Molly had to ensure that the lab adhered to Health and Safety precautions; she cleaned up the spilt acid with her gloves on her diminutive hands. If Sherlock would have helped this tiresome shift would be many less hours than Molly anticipated.

She grabbed her thick jacket and turned the vibrant lights of in the lab of the old hospital. Molly left the room and walked towards the exit, ready to go home and settle down to the book she was reading 'Remember Me,' a story about a girl who loved a man who barley noticed her, he suffers a terrible accident and she must remind him of all her hopeless tries to love him, and life seems to be going her way until everything she has gained is pulled away from her and hope becomes helpless. The blurb was misleading, it made the story sound happy, but the last chapter Molly finished had left her pillow damp in the morning, and her cat Toby comforting her as she cried over words on a page which were written so beautifully that she had to continue the devastating novel.

Sherlock had seemed so full of hope when he returned without warning after two years away, the world believing he was no longer breathing. John cared ever so much, despite this ruining a year of his life which seemed to drift by in a grey haze of depression. Then he found a woman who brightened his day. Mary Morstan. This gave him one person to care about, and when Sherlock returned he couldn't comprehend that he had left him without hope for so long. Hope had made him believe he would live in eternal misery. Mary, however, was kind and always smiling. Her short blonde hair was full of like as she got closer to John this life seemed to make him smile; he didn't mourn Sherlock any longer. He was getting on with his life.

Sherlock's return had left him shocked. At first he punched Sherlock without warning. Partially because of the anger that he didn't know his friend was alive for two long years and secondly because he had to check, had to see whether this sight was real. Blue eyes glistened with life that had seemed so drained of life on the concrete outside St Bartholomew's hospital. And Sherlock told him that he was real, he was back. It would be John and him, the unstoppable pair, the two of them against the rest of the world.

Of course John had said he couldn't continue like that anymore. He was going to be a married man and had responsibilities. He loved Mary and despite Sherlock's return he still seemed like life had faded from his body. They spoke and had solved crimes since his return, but their relationship could never be the same.

Sherlock walked through the jet black door that led him to 221B Baker Street. The smell of chemicals seemed to welcome him to every room, as Mrs Hudson had grown tired of cleaning the acid burned carpets and sulphuric stench that manifested itself in the toaster.

_It was a lonely place._

Sociopaths do not feel. Sherlock repeated this over and over. He tried to trick his heart into pumping blood rather than triggering tears to sympathise about how isolated and bored he felt in 221B, it was lonely. Sherlock needed to make the place seem less lonely. He had to numb this feeling and e had two options.

Either choose the black box, and change create a tough downward spiral for his life and the work. Or the grey box and feel intense, searing pain for the rest of the night, but feel comforted by the hurt.

There was no positive choice, nothing beneficial. No violin, because he had broken the strings and John normally travelled to the music shop Oxford Street to help Sherlock restock. No nicotine patches because John was not there to make sure he did not take any more than three, not that he cared all that much of the consequences. No gun, because John had the license. The house needed John and so did Sherlock, who was currently sitting on the floor rummaging underneath the fireplace for a concealed hole in the chimney.

His defined hands were not as pale as a sheet as charcoal black colours had smeared his hands in the dark, eloquent dust. He found something soft sealed in a slight cavern. It was a paper wrap which tightly wrapped around two boxes. He tugged with little effort for the box to hold it over the already ruined carpet, and unravelled the once pastel coloured paper from a large box. He opened the box and in a guilty moment squinted both of his eyes, as if he had experience a kind of pain, and he opened the box.

Two boxes were inside. They were identical in shape and size, with locks and engravings. However, both boxes had writing on them; the patterns looked similar but had two completely differentiating meanings. One said 'Use Wisely, and the other said 'Use in Ignorance.'' They wording displayed an ancient language, but was really a code that Sherlock had deciphered when training him to work as a cryptographer while reading informative books about Morse codes, war, ancient words, roman coding and the life of Alan Turing.

One box was grey and the other was black. One contained longed, straight edged objects that held a silhouette that resembled a chess piece. This was the grey box or ignorance. The other contained a fine white powder and other useful objects. This black box should be used wisely and Sherlock had a tough decision to make that would aid him in the tiring, isolated night ahead at 221B. He needed a temporary coping mechanism till morning came, as he had lost his equipment because Mrs Hudson sold them to a local school and he had also lost John.

Would he choose the drug that made his mind rush and think of all the many possible solutions that are completely impossible, and find others that are not probable. Make rapid connections to deduce aspects from his flat that he has never seen before. Or the numbing pain that would help him get through the long, sleepless nights.

Sherlock had to choose between the appealing high of the cocaine and his sharp blades.

_Ohh, hope you enjoyed, more to come and I hope to update it regularly so it would be nice to have some reviews to say whether I should continue it and if you like it and I would love some suggestions on how to improve it and where you want the story to go, I go by the same name on tumblr, so make sure you follow consultingat221b on there too J Thank you_


	2. Chapter 2

_Thank you for the follows and the one lovely review which has helped me in deciding where I want this story to go, that was very nice of you J so, I have a plan for where the story is going so you can be sure for some longer chapters and nice in depth story with some hopefully fleshed out characters_

_Chapter 2_

Of course it was the drugs. It was always the drugs first.

To feel his mind race madly and wave goodbye to reality was a treacherous feeling. It was the sort of substantial danger that Sherlock was addicted to. He wasn't addicted to the rugs. No, no they were just a convenient form of transport. Monsters lived inside his head, and the thrill of the high seemed to intoxicate these creatures. Sherlock observed miniature details that made little sense in his deductions, and suddenly they seemed profoundly significant.

The ebony box contrasted to the fine white powder it contained. It was like finding purity inside a dingy prison. The transparent plastic looked appealing to the vulnerable mind inside Sherlock's disguised skull. The minor amount of powder had come to serenade him. Black was the colour of his damaged heart, it would tear anyone who came close apart.

It was hard to accept himself as someone he didn't desire and didn't want to be. He wanted to be extraordinarily clever; there was no tragedy in that. However, he felt hated because he struggled to communicate effectively, through his insults and hurtful sarcasm people found themselves feeling like they had been smacked. Sherlock was lost and low, this was real.

He could have resigned from life. What was the point? The time he spent was going slowly and being wasted like the money he paid Marcus. Marcus was his dealer. He had dark hair, which blended into the dead of the night. He wore black clothes too, this had become a trend in Sherlock's life, the colour was dim and low and this corresponded directly to what Sherlock's dull life had become.

He sprinkled a small amount of the powder, which had worn of the original rock like chemical formula, into a tough, metal Petri dish. He reached for the grey box and grabbed a sharp blade. Carefully he brought it to the fine powder and began to chop the cocaine. The powder became more and more like flour and less coarse. This would be kinder, he told himself as he stared silently at the decent supply of the crack.

This high would come cascading down like a waterfall, and he would feel worse in the days to come. But what did that matter? A scar is just skin healing back thicker, stronger, better. God even knew that Sherlock had an incredibly strong shield of skin. So the crash would just be a lonely, depressed genius recovering from his solemn sadness.

Sherlock's cold, sober heart told him that people cared. It protested that if he was going to avoid relapsing he should do it for those who care. They all cared so much John, Lestrade, Molly and even the cryptic Mycroft, who, despite their brilliant differences and statements that caring was no advantage, was a brilliant older brother. Sherlock had never been able to deduce that much though.

Sherlock did not have a heart. He was often compared to a machine, because in his childhood film, The Wizard of Oz, the tin man was heartless, and so was Sherlock. He didn't have a heart, or at least not a glowing, warm one, so he would have to listen to his intellectual mind, which could be so ignorant at the most desperate of times.

Sherlock's eyes surreptitiously drifted away from his illegal supply of crack and landed on the clock. It was almost midnight.

He knew that sleep was not an option, just useless transport. The only transport Sherlock could comprehend was the pain and the thrill of the stimulant as it intoxicated his hazy brain and aided him through the night with a short high.

He had the case file for his latest mystery by his side. The burglary had initially seemed predictable, but the trace of the footprints was abnormally close together for such a young person. It made little sense, but Sherlock had decided that if he took the stimulant soon the case would inevitably be solved sooner due to the rapid, fast flow of his thoughts. It was too convenient. Lestrade had been wondering why Sherlock's cases had been solves unusually quickly recently, well, this was the reason. Cocaine, relapses. This fucking rut Sherlock seemed unmistakably fantastic for someone heading in a downward spiral.

Sherlock figured that it was better to dive into the high; waiting would only make him more irritable during his low for the next few days. Surely Lestrade would notice if he turned the freshly solved case in with a frown. Or Molly might see the slight glint in his eyes as he adjusted the positioning of his head in front of the microscope.

Molly Hooper. She counted. Sherlock had known that for an awful long time. Unfortunately she was overly confident in her deductions about Sherlock. He, being Sherlock, had the brain to tell her that her attempts at a vast deduction were only weak assumptions, but it was adorable that people tried to help the work. They never succeeded. They were not proper geniuses.

She had noticed Sherlock's sadness when he believed John could not see him. That was devastating. John never saw him anymore so his sadness seemed everlasting. This short stage of depression had appeared to last longer than he would have hoped. Maybe he was still feeling the drop from the last time he took the serendipitous powder. John was never around to spy on Sherlock's sorrowfulness and report his erratic behaviour to Mycroft, thankfully. But John had been Sherlock's only friend. Now it only seemed that Molly would notice his melancholy. Not that she cared, he truthfully lied to himself, and not that anyone cared.

"Ouch!" Sherlock shrieked a cry of agonising pain as he snorted the crack without thinking. Maybe he should have worked a harder when grinding the powder.

He felt his heart beat physically pump at a faster pace almost instantly. The pain in his nostrils that seemed to quickly radiate to his brain was searing and he knew the rush would begin soon. He would first feel warm, like the first time the sun shines brightly through the window of 221B onto his back in spring. Shortly after that warmth he would feel the oxygen travel in his body at a density that was similar to water, scolding him with boiling temperatures.

Firstly, he took a hold of the files which held monotonous files and examined each page. The never-ending text seemed like a complicated code that needed deciphering to empty-headed, normal morons.

He felt as if nothing could stop him. The racing thoughts were firing out of his brain like they were bullets shot from a machine gun. Complacent ideas filled the room and his mind palace was more vivid than ever before.

He could picture every word decoded in every language known to man and the possible meanings of the enigmatic information. The window had blocked sunlight, as files were plasterer across the living room of 221B like the wall of a detective's office; mentally formed string connected each section of information together. The painting of the skull that hung rightfully on the wall and the chocolate, brown, patterned wallpaper were no longer visible as it had been camouflaged in the sheets of paper.

Then he felt the fire warm up, "John, can you put some more coal on the fire to keep it going?" He looked expectantly for an answer but his vivid imagination used the stimulant as a hallucinogenic as nothing was visible beneath the extravagant files of classified information, "John?" The files seemed to generate in every corner of the room and create a magnificent spectacle that created vast images of the burglar never leaving the building and blending in like a spy to a wall in an overrated action film, "They never left!" John, was no where to be seen. This did not detain Sherlock's enthusiasm over the solved case, his heart beat rapidly when he looked under each mental sheet in his hard drive.

"John, phone Lestrade, tell him the case is solved," Sherlock reported enthusiastically, "They never left the building, the woman who worked in the office had a lover- John, have you phoned him yet?"

He fell to the floor as heat waves of excitement weaved through each vein, ligament, artery and bone of his body. Just as he hit the ground hard, the truth hit him harder. It was like falling for a second time to the cold, grave concrete outside St Barts. John was gone. He had the lovable Mary and didn't need to be the blogger of a damaged detective anymore.

Sherlock demonstrated his joy of the solved case by jumping to his feet and cheering uproariously.

The heat made him plummet back to the ground. He stretched his tired arm to his phone, but the excitement of a solved mystery and the combination of his attitude with the crack caused an intermittent tremor all over his body, so if Lestrade received a badly punctuated text from Mr Sherlock Holmes himself, he would know instantly that something was severely wrong.

His body was seemingly lifeless, but full of heat and fast paced, subconscious deductions were constantly occurring in his mind. He felt his mood go from high to low, but nothing stopped his happiness. He solved a case! A mystery that of course baffled the idiotic minds of most people, Lestrade was the only mad who Sherlock had a faint ounce of hope in.

The woman who Scotland Yard presumed the victim was in fact the victim. Sherlock thought that maybe she had tried to trick the police knowing that the genius private eye would come to their help, but in fact she was veritably innocent. She had, however had a over in at the time, the jewellery that the robber had dropped (according to Andersons weak analysis of the situation) had been thrown out the window and the lover was planning to collect them on the way out of the house to sell some time shortly after his ride from Kensington to somewhere around five stops away on the Victoria line. He knew this because when he left the office he had walked slowly with light, short footsteps to avoid his lover noticing he had left. And a suspiciously wallet dropped in a pawn shop not too many miles from the heart of Kensington, he had obviously gotten far enough away to avoid attention, but close enough to not be suspected by his partner. She hadn't mentioned his presence because she was not allowed visitor in her office during working hours. Anderson had wrongly expected this sandy formula to be vital to the solving of the case, but that was a red herring and had annoyingly misled Sherlock, despite him being unwilling to accept Anderson's poor evidence.

Sherlock expected to see the case written up on John's blog in a few hours, and then he lamentably reminded himself that this would not be feasible. He was lost without his blogger.

Sherlock's eye shifted quickly to where the clock should be. The files had disappeared and he could make out the time to be two in the morning. His mood was becoming low and the unnaturally rapid blood rush had lessened. The low would affect his day in a negative way. His head would feel boozy and he would be more irritable than he would be on the best of days. It was not a hypothetical idea that he would solve any more cryptic cases for Lestrade tomorrow, he would be feeling unimaginably low, and this would not encourage him to enjoy his work for a while.

Transport wouldn't flush the unnatural low from his system. But, maybe another snort of crack would see him through the day.

No, that was not a favourable idea. Drugs were quick. Drugs change perception and stimulated his magnificent brain to work even more boldly. He knew the potential dangers of the harmful cocaine. Sherlock lowered his brows in front of his eyes, with concern, could it do too much damage to take more? He wasn't taking them regularly so why would it be of the utmost importance to stay clean for another day. He was certainly never an addict, only to his work, but that was the unfortunately common mindset for most drug addicts.

Sherlock Holmes encouraged himself that he was not an addict. He was a sociopath, how could he get addicted to anything? He couldn't. It was preposterous.

Sherlock rolled out of bead, his head felt overly hazy and the world felt unreal as his foot diverged from his mattress to the wooden floor. His bony body tripped because it had become cumbersome from the foreign thrill of last nights high. The cheap, splintering floor of the homely 221B flat was chilly to Sherlock's bare feet. He trekked slowly, taking long strides because he wished to arrive in the kitchen promptly.

The kettle began to boil and Sherlock could not step silently to his favourite armchair because the floor held piles of important paperwork, newspapers and potential unsolved cases to cure his irritating boredom.

It was early afternoon and Lestrade had failed to inform Sherlock of any recent cases. This had encouraged Sherlock to take to his Newspapers to search for any suspicious article which linked uncannily.

Nothing.

Dull, boring, predictable London. No cases to solve and nothing even vaguely interesting to indulge his time in.

He took to a dusty book that he had last touched a few months before his life changed. Before the events with Moriarty panned out, resolving in his loss of John and his two years of isolation, before returning to London to feel surprisingly lonelier.

'The unsolved Cases of the Bow Street Runners.' He decided that the story about Sir Alexander Middleton was an extremely interesting unsolved crime. It had the basics of any locked room murder; the Bow Street Runner clearly missed a lot of vital clues.

A middle aged man found impaled on a samurai sword in a locked room, with no windows, "Simple," Sherlock grumbled. He had to check out his theory by bringing a twenty first century envelope to Barts to compare with a very dated, antique envelope he managed to haggle from an antique shop. And he had to test the strength of the reaction Iodine and Sodium had with the chemicals on the section where people are supposed to lick to force the folded paper to close effectively. This would surely reopen important questioning for a two hundred year old case.

He stumbled unhappily to the door of his flat. Turning languidly he looked at the mess of 221B. It had always been an untidy place, but it normally felt like a home. However, something seemed empty and silently terrifying about the dull flat. HE had spent a night working wildly and eventually managed to tell Lestrade the events, he we dodged his way out of making a statement because he knew how to work swiftly around Lestrade and foil his plans without destroying his job.

Slipping his arm fluently through the thick sleeve of his long, beloved coat, he adjusted the collar and walked into the busy Baker Street. The chilly autumn air did not take him by surprise. It sent a slow shiver through his body, causing a wave of reactions through his body and this became apparent in the chattering of his teeth. Sherlock swimmingly swerved past busy Londoner who rushed with briefcases and pull-along suitcases to jobs around the city.

One woman held a turquoise bad, this indicate that he job was calm, aided by the fact that she was walking slow and smiling considerately to her mobile phone. Calling, why call when she could text? Probably a child, about fourteen years of age, half term so they wouldn't attend school. They must have been asking what to by in the shop for her, no teenager rang up to be kind to their parent. No one cared nowadays. She clearly worked in a shop as a cashier. Her skin was white and her accent indicated that she has live on the Metropolitan line for a long time. She was well dressed, so her job must have been at a high costing clothes store. Someone of that nature would not dress so well and have such expensive MAC makeup if they simply worked at a Tesco's. She was also well paid, clearly. It is usually immigrants who work at high street food stores such as ASDA or Tesco's. She had one kid and probably worked in an expensive clothes shop in central London.

Sherlock hailed a cab and asked to be driven to Bart's hospital. This place was his second home. Molly would inevitably be there if he fancied idle chatter, but that was not something Sherlock did.

The journey was slow. Traffic filled the London streets as per usual. The cars drifted along slowly, like leaves dropped into a river which did not have steep cascading waterfalls, but slow dripping water, the leaf would glided along and slowly the wind would take it in another direction and turn a swift corner. The taxi turned a corner.

An underground sign for Barbican appeared in Sherlock's peripheral vision. He saw signs directing tourists to the Museum of London. Sherlock had visited there briefly because they had a vast collection of skulls, it was mildly interesting but the skulls were as dull as ever. Some had holes from trephoning during the medieval period, and others had slight injuries from battle and Sherlock could accurately imagine the fleshed out faces that would have once defined the faces.

The building was not that large, but he passed a telephone box and entered through a side entrance. The lift took him up to slowly to the fourth floor. The transparency of the hospital was not ideal, Sherlock could tell there was an epidemic on the first floor, many people had caught swine flu and the inconsiderate public considered the illness an apt reason to attend A&E. It wasn't.

Sherlock entered the most empty lab that he always worked in, "Oh, Molly," he was startled to see the pathologist in his lab.

"Oh, hello. Erm, I didn't know you would be working here today," Molly squeaked like a mouse, equally startled to see Sherlock, although she had expected to see him sooner or later, he had entered the unsanitary hospital for the work every day this October.

Sherlock hissed unkindly under his breath, "Clearly you had some idea or you wouldn't have been sat in this lab, the only one I attend. Rather than doing what you are paid to do and study the bodies in the morgue. Off you pop."

Molly looked down awkwardly. She had expected Sherlock to be thankful to her, she tried hard to communicate with him on a daily basis and empathise with his sociopath behaviour, "I thought I might stay, it's meant to be my lunch but I take it you have a case to be working on. I though you might like my help, let me do something useful and bring something useful to this hospital rather than people dying everywhere," she giggled through her grave words, expecting Sherlock to laugh, but when would that ever happen?

"Iodine," Sherlock insisted, "I need iodine and sodium, take as long as you like I am in no serious rush."

"Okay, I'll be quick." Molly mumbled in her shy voice as she hurriedly travelled towards the door.

"Leave the on the side, I will not be here and I would prefer to not have company while I work," Sherlock ordered Molly in the most cruel way, using her to his advantage, but he was close to giving up on the dull world today. He needed something to help his brain concentrate, "Not again. Nope. Stupid, stupid," he scolded himself.

Molly's ponytail promptly swished around like the tail of a horse on a spring day. "Are you oka-"

"Molly…" Sherlock hushed her tone, ""You know better than to ask petty, unimportant questions like that."

"Oh yes, of course, I'll go then," she scrambled quickly out of the door and Sherlock heard light, fast footsteps travel down the corridor. She must have run in a slight rush of embarrassment and humiliation.

Sherlock found himself opening the cupboard. There were a few acids, hydrochloric acid and other chemical vitals, but Molly knew where to get new supplies. He managed to sit uncomfortably on the floor of the cupboard.

The atmosphere of the room was so lifeless. He felt sort of claustrophobic, but he knew that he had no phobia to trigger any severe anxiety. The whiff of chemicals was unpleasant, but much better than the smell of toilets, especial hospital toilets, where people had no care to flush there business away and lavender air freshener intertwined with the pungent sell of faeces.

The dim light illuminated the pure white room. Just enough to act like a candle highlighting the small black box that Sherlock held ashamedly in front of him.

_That was pretty looooong. I haven't had the chance to check it for spelling and grammar, but I will change major mistakes tomorrow. I hope you enjoy it, the next chapter is going to be incredibly angsty and hopefully a lot of SHERLOLLY! This was a very tough chapter to write and not much speech going on! Trying to write third person scenes about a single person is difficult because it is oh so hard to write without getting right into the persons head and explaining It from there pov. I shouldn't complain because I enjoy writing this fan fiction and I have never done creative writing before apart from 600 words for my English coursework, so this is completely alien! I hope it isn't too bad Reviews are appreciated, follow consultingat221b on tumblr too! Thank you awesome people_


	3. Chapter 3

_Loving writing this story!. I will try not to bore you with a little message and I will get on with the story, I wasn't planning on making it longer thank 2k, but I think I will write a lot more words, I noticed loads of spelling mistakes cause I was tired and couldn't be bothered to proof read, so I will try to be more efficient in proof reading this time. I am trying to update this daily but don't be upset if I don't because I am having a little bit of personal problems at the moment and writing probably is not the first thing on my mind._

_This will hopefully not be as long a chapter as yesterday and I know I said the action would happen but I think If I want to flesh this story out and make it believable I need to go into a lot of depth and characterisation rather than endless angsty conversation. This chapter is primarily Molly so I hope you don't mind my dodging the Sherlolly for a while just to get the shipers wanting more ;)_

_Lol, what happened to not writing a long boring intro?! ANYWAYSS ENJOY! THIS MOLLY CHAPTER!_

Chapter 3

Molly decided to stop shortly in the Hospital's Café. It was a Costa Coffee and the meals were a huge improvement on what the patients would be served while reclining in rock solid beads.

She couldn't face Sherlock immediately. He seemed so infuriated by her presence that she decided a short break would not be a major problem with his cold, resourceful mind. His actions seemed as they would on any normal day, but Molly was ignorantly unaware of abnormality of this day.

She ordered a large hot chocolate, no meal, because she wasn't hungry and could do with a calming rink because her job had landed her in a large amount of stress lately. The steam raised swiftly into the oxygen of the gloomy hospital. She was exceptionally tired and it made little sense to order a hot chocolate, she was adamant that she would like to stay awake through the rest of the day, but she had no regrets when she sipped the scolding drink from the large, china mug. Her tongue became scolded and she let out a small gasp of shock, but there was no mistaking that the taste was delicious.

She reminded herself that she would need to collect the iodine and sodium from the resource lab. Sherlock had told her to take her time, but this seemed unlike him. Maybe he was sneakily testing her to see whether she could handle him commanding her? Maybe this would help him deduce something from her? Maybe he was attempt - nope. She needed to stop being so unnecessarily paranoid.

She warned herself to stop worrying frantically. Sherlock wanted iodine and sodium for his work, but he had no immediate need. For the chemicals that Molly often saw on the brightly coloured periodic table. By the time she managed to tell herself that there was no need to panic, she had finished drinking her tranquil drink and decided that she ought to help Sherlock and collect the chemicals that he needed.

She carried herself softly through the corridors of St Bartholomew's Hospital. The building seemed to contain a very modern and slightly futuristic interior, despite it being one of the first medical schools built in the Dark Ages.

The lab had a fluorescent orange sign which allowed only staff to enter. Molly twisted the handle carefully, she didn't want to disturb anyone who would be working with threatening chemicals, and entered the confined lab. The periodic table was plastered over a wall and a prominent alcoholic stench of hydrochloric acid stagnated in the room. Every glass beaked had a warning sign, consisting of skulls and exclamation marks which made anyone anxious as they fear the worst if the accidentally dropped the dangerous substance onto their fragile human body. The sodium and iodine looked strikingly similar, despite having opposing reactions, they were both naturally found in a metallic silver rock formation. The labels made it easier to distinguish between substances and, sure enough, Molly found the correct chemicals that must have been vital in Sherlock's case.

She had school memories of placing sodium in water. They would watch as the silver ball slowly fizzed and sparked as it run around a shallow glass beaker. Even at that moment Molly adored chemistry and forensics, her forte was clearly pathology but if she would have headed in the unlikely direction that her parents would have liked her to go in she could have worked with the ignorantly stupid Anderson. The wonderful sciences lead her to bodies, post mortem, weird things that people don't consider possible after the life has drained from a human. It seemed a grim job, but someone had to do it, and Molly didn't mind at all. If she couldn't help the unthankful living, she might as well aid the dead.

She wasn't a happy girl in school. Even at the supposedly anxiety-free age of fifteen, she felt the pressure to pass GCSE's and be a 'model student' overwhelming. She would often miss lessons and sit in the toilets, alone. It was unpleasant as the whiff of the once weekly cleansed lavatories was not a nice one. She would read a book and get helplessly lost in the fantastic world that stopped her from feeling so lonely and stressed.

People saw Molly as the quiet, boring girl, and they still seem to find her only interesting point how extremely uninteresting she is. She did have a social life though, she was getting drunk at fifteen. It was mainly a way to cope with the stress although she was not proud to admit it. The booze would make her feel slightly dizzy, she would socialize with people she had never met before and laugh manically, before throwing up because she had little control over her own actions. She would never become addicted to a substance though. She had seen the awful damage this could do to good-hearted people's bodies first hand. This made her able to empathize with their distress and put her off drinking alcohol to excess. She would never have called herself a reckless girl or an alcoholic, but it was incredibly fun to get lost in a mind that was determined it was still sober. She did enjoy alcohol, but in moderation and only sweet tasting, low volume drinks, such as a deep, rouge wine.

She found herself opening yet another door to the lab that Sherlock was working in. She had dissociated in reminiscing about what her unimaginably uninteresting youth was like to live and was obviously his favourite of the many labs under the IT floor in Bart's, "Sherlock?" She looked around, expecting the pale figure to stand there and ward her off with a distasteful remark, but he wasn't, "Are you in here?"

No reply.

"I'll just leave these chemicals on the side," she murmured to the invisible figure, ""Okay."

Molly suddenly recalled that she had been told that he may not be in the lab when she returned. She sighed and placed the chemicals on the side of the lab. Even though he had warned her he would not be present, she was to some degree disappointed. She considered it very unlike Sherlock to not spend every moment in a science lab.

He was unstoppable In his work and it was ever so slightly suspicious that he would have just left a microscope and files in the room unattended. Molly knew that questioning it would get her into trouble, so she turned around and left the lab. She yearned for Sherlock to turn a corner just so she could admire his striking face. The defined cheekbones and eyes that was as unbelievably deep as a three metre depth pool for an eight year old child who only knew the basics of how to float. She expected to see his coat in the mist of people who she dodged as she walked lightly against the flow of staff, students and patients but she didn't see his long coat. She didn't see anyone with their collar turned up. She didn't see Sherlock.

However, she wasn't expected to be aware that the consulting detective was in the cupboard. She could not have deduced that he was lying on the floor with little life, he had taken more cocaine without considering the awful consequences, because Sherlock Holmes was not a sociopath – he couldn't hand the discovery of his emotions.

No, he certainly wasn't the sociopath he proclaimed himself to be, however he remained the addict...


End file.
